Display fixture



March 25,1941.

Fig, 1

INVENTOR CE L'anfz'eld 1 H7 In go ATTORNEY Patented Mar. 25, 1941 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE Original application October 1, 1936, Serial No. 103,612. Divided and this application February 25, 1938, Serial N- 192,618

1 Claim. (01. 211-9131 This invention relates to display racks and, among other objects, aims to provide an improved rack which may be used for holding a plurality of articles such as greeting cardsin such a manner that'customers may examine the entire stock carried by the merchant Without the assistance of a sales person. The invention also provides a display rack which will hold all the cards at approximately the same angle to the eye so that all may be read without handling.

Furthermore, the invention provides a sales rack.

which will hold cards or the like in such a manner that they may be individually removed and replaced without disturbing adjacent cards. The invention has other objects and advantages which will be understood from the following description of the preferred embodiment thereof which is shown in the accompanying drawing.

This application is a division of my pending application Ser. No. 103,612 filed October 1, 1936, which claims the spring clip divider per se.

Fig. 1 is a front elevation of the display rack, the hidden portions of one of the spring clip dividers being shown in dotted lines.

Fig. 2 is a top plan view of the same.

Fig. 3 is a section on line 33 of Fig. 1.

Fig. 4 is a perspective view of one of the spring clip dividers which forms a part of the rack of the invention.

Referring particularly to the drawing, there is shown a display rack comprising a frame-like support Ill having a plurality of uprights l I (only one of which is shown.) and inclined braces I2, one at each end. The support I0, uprights II and braces l2 comprise a supporting structure for display shelves to be described, and said supporting structure is well adapted to rest on a display case or table or on any flat horizontal surface within a store. The two vertical memhers I! carry an upright bracket l3 on which a shelf i4 is mounted, said shelf l4 providing a convenient means for holding an advertising sign by which customers of the store may be informed of the character and price of the goods displayed on the rack.

At the front of the rack there is a bumper strip l5 preferably vertical and secured to the forward ends of the horizontal members of the support ill. The bumper strip 55 protects the articles located adjacent it from being soiled or displaced by passersby. It also strengthens the base or support and enhances the appearance of the display rack. The inner face of the bumper strip is grooved as indicated at l6 to receive the forward edge ofone of the shelves l1 pro vided for the support of the articles to be displayed.

The cards or other articles are held in troughs provided by the shelves I! and shelf backs [8, said shelf backs preferably extending at acute angles to; the shelves to which they are attached. As the shelves I! are preferably disposed at an acute angle to the horizontal, the shelf backs l8 preferably extend-at an acute angle to the vertical and preferably the shelf backs, while extending the full length of the display rack, are of various widths and are so arranged that the widest shelf backs l8 are toward the rear of the display rack. The shelves I1 may also be of varying widths, the widest shelves being at the rear of the rack. Thus provision is made for adequately displaying greeting cards of several different sizes. Preferably the rearmost article-receiving trough provided by the rear shelf I1 and its back [8 is rigidly secured to the several uprights II but the other article-receiving troughs may be removable and to this end said troughs may rest on the inclined braces l2, which may be notched on their upper edges as indicated at l2a, lZb, etc. The forward edge of the front shelf I1 is preferably received within the groove l6 and hence is easily removed from the bumper strip and the support. As shown, the front edge of each shelf is beveled so as to lie flat against the rear surface of the shelf back immediately in front of it. Also, as shown, the inner edge of each shelf has openings ill to facilitate the removal of dust from the bottom of the trough.

To separate the articles being displayed, a plurality of spring wire clips are employed. One of these clips, as shown in Fig. 4, is composed of a single piece of wire bent approximately in its middle to forma loop and a pair of arms 2|, 22, preferably disposed at an acute angle to each other and lying in the same plane and spaced from the straight intermediate portion 23 of the clip. The loop 20 is of such width as to fit over the top edge of a shelf back l8 so that the clip resiliently grips the shelf back. The other end of the wire is bent to form a loop 24 which is therefore at right angles to the surface of the shelf back I8 when the clip is in position. The spring clips may be moved longitudinally of the shelf backs and hence their positions may be adjusted to fit cards or articles of various sizes which may be displayed upon the rack. It is obvious that a considerable number of cardsbearing the same message may be placed in a stack between two of the wire clips and will be held in the pocket provided by said clips without the possibility of being mixed up with dissimilar cards on either side. It is also clear that the resilient curved end of each spring wire clip may be sprung outwardly and hence may hold a card or series of cards in a stack, in which case the wire clips act not as spacers or dividers but as resilient gripping means.

It will be obvious that the described display rack facilitates the display of goods of this character and the replacement of articles sold from the rack. Furthermore, a large number of articles can be displayed from the rack as there is no waste space. The rack effects an economy in time of the sales person and also minimizes the number of cards or other articles which are likely to become soiled, hence unsalable, becausev of handling, it being unnecessary to handle any of the cards in order to read their messages. The invention has other advantages which will be understood without further explanation.

Obviously the present invention may be embodied in several forms neither shown nor described.

Having described one embodiment of the invention, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

A display rack comprising, in combination, a supporting structure adapted to rest on a horizontal surface; a plurality of fiat shelves of unbeing associated with the widest shelf at the rear and upper portion of the rack; the front edge of each shelf, except the shelf directly in front of the rack, abutted against the back face of the shelf back next in front; a vertical bumper strip being at the front of the rack and rising well above the shelf directly in the front, the front edge of the latter shelf being abutted against the rear of said bumper strip; each shelf being at an acute angle to and forming with its shelf back a V-shaped trough for receiving a plurality of articles to be displayed; and each shelf back rising well above the upper surface of the shelf directly to its rear, so that the several shelf backs, and said bumper strip, provide means to hold articles in said V-shaped troughs and' the several shelf backs facilitate attachment of slidable article separating clips.

CHARLES H. CANFIELD. 

